The Rabbits' Island is an Italian island part of the archipelago of the Pelagie islands in Sicily.
The island, of merely 4,4 hectares, is located within a bay chosen by TripAdvisors users, as part of the Travelers' Choice Prices, the most beautiful beach in the world in 2013, in Europe and Italy in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
The island is not very distant from the coas, so less that, sometimes, it was even united with it through a sandy isthmus of 30 meters long. This is considered a rare event (the last time that this happened was back in 2008), due to the advancing waves and the low tide, but usually people can still stay in bay without immersin themselves all the way down for the depth varies from 30 to 150 cm.
In the first discovered nautical map dated in 1824 and written by Admiral Smith, the area was called "Rabit Island", in the reference to the isthmus that connects the island to the coast: rabit in Arabics means in fact link, which connects. The name then evolved, because it has been denominated in an improper manner, and then translated in English (rabbit) instead of Arabic.
According to others the name came from a colony of rabbits inhabiting the island during one of the recurring isthmus sandy formations. The colony would eventually settled with the disappearance of the terrestrial link.
The island isn't high, with a maximum height of 26 meters, and completely rocky. The flora and fauna are very similar to those of the North African coast. The beach adjacent to the island is one of the few areas where sea turtles "Caretta caretta" lay their eggs. It is also an important resting place for migratory birds that make a stop during April and September and the one area (as well as in parts of Africa from which it originates) where a rare species of lizard lives, the "psammodromus algirus".
The island is not very distant from the coas, so less that, sometimes, it was even united with it through a sandy isthmus of 30 meters long. This is considered a rare event (the last time that this happened was back in 2008), due to the advancing waves and the low tide, but usually people can still stay in bay without immersin themselves all the way down for the depth varies from 30 to 150 cm.In the first discovered nautical map dated in 1824 and written by Admiral Smith, the area was called "Rabit Island", in the reference to the isthmus that connects the island to the coast: rabit in Arabics means in fact link, which connects. The name then evolved, because it has been denominated in an improper manner, and then translated in English (rabbit) instead of Arabic.
According to others the name came from a colony of rabbits inhabiting the island during one of the recurring isthmus sandy formations. The colony would eventually settled with the disappearance of the terrestrial link.
The island isn't high, with a maximum height of 26 meters, and completely rocky. The flora and fauna are very similar to those of the North African coast. The beach adjacent to the island is one of the few areas where sea turtles "Caretta caretta" lay their eggs. It is also an important resting place for migratory birds that make a stop during April and September and the one area (as well as in parts of Africa from which it originates) where a rare species of lizard lives, the "psammodromus algirus".
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